The Baltimore County union. [volume] (Towsontown, Md.) 1865-1909, 1887-09-17
TEMPER.
THE REASON WHY SOME HUSBANDS ARE QUIET
AND sEDAIE.
F0rtnighHy RepielC.

F0rtnigAtly Repie,C.
The admixture of different tempers among
the brothers and sisters of the sams family is a
notable fact due to various causes which act in
different directions. IL is best to consider them
before we proceed to collect evidence and at
tempt its Interpretation. 1t is clear enough, and
may be taken for granted, that the tempers of
progenitors do not readily blend in the offspring,
but that some OF the children take mainly after
one of them, some after another, but with few
threads as it were, is various ancestral tempers
woven in, which occasionally manifest them
selves. If no other influences intervened, the
tempers of the children in the same family would
on this account be almost as varied as those OF
their ancestors, who married at haphazard, so
far as their tempers were concerned; therefore
the numbers Of good or bad children in families
would be regulated by the same laws of chance
that apply to gambling table. But there are
other influences to be considered. There is a
well-known tendency to family likeness among
brothers and sisters which is not due to the
blending of ancestral peculiarities, but to the
prepotence of one of the progenitors, who has
stamped more than his fair share of qualities
upon the children. 1t may also be due to a
familiar naaiIrranae that deserves hut has not
vet received distinctive name-namely, where
all the children are alike and yet their common
likeness can not be traced to their progenitors.
new variety has come into existence through
q process not of individuals, but of "cofraternaP
variation. The most strongly marked family
type that have personally met with first arose
simultaneously in the three brothers of a family
who transmitted their peculiarities with unusual
tenacity to numerous descendants through at
least two generations. Other influences act in
antagonism to the foregoing they are the events
of domestic life, which instead of assimiating
tempers tend to accentuate slight differences
in them. Thus if some members Of family
are little submissive by nature, others who are
naturally little domineering are tempted to
become more so. Then the acquired habit OF
dictation in these reacts upon the others and
makes them still more submissive. In the col
lection / made of histories of twins who were
closely alike. the statement was constantly met
with that one of the twins was guided by the
other. suppose that after their many childish
struggles for supremacy, each finally discovered
his own relative strength Of character, and
thenceforth the stronger developed into the
leader, while the weaker contentedly subsidized
into the position of being led. Again, it is
sometimes observed that member of an easy
going family discovers that he or she may exer-
else considerable power by adopting the habit
of being perslstently disagreeable whenever he
or she does not get the first and best OF every
thing. Some wives try to tyrannize over hus-
bands who are mild and sensitive, who hate fam
lily scenes and dread the disgrace attending them,
by holding themselves in readiness to fly into
passion whenever their wishes are withstood.-
They thus acquire habit Of breaking out" to
use term familiar to the warders of female
prisons and lunatic asylums, and though their
relatives and connections would describe
their tempers by severe epithets, yet IL they had
married masterful husbands their characters
might have developed more favorably.